Using read_html in R to get Russell 3000 holdings? - r

Question

I was wondering if there is a way to automatically pull the Russell 3000 holdings from the iShares website in R using the read_html (or rvest) function?
url: https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239714/ishares-russell-3000-etf
(all holdings in the table on the bottom, not just top 10)
So far I have had to copy and paste into an Excel document, save as a CSV, and use read_csv to create a tibble in R of the ticker, company name, and sector.
I have used read_html to pull the SP500 holdings from wikipedia, but can't seem to figure out the path I need to put in to have R automatically pull from iShares website (and there arent other reputable websites I've found with all ~3000 holdings). Here is the code used for SP500:
read_html("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_S%26P_500_companies")%>%
html_node("table.wikitable")%>%
html_table()%>%
select('Symbol','Security','GICS Sector','GICS Sub Industry')%>%
as_tibble()
First post, sorry if it is hard to follow...
Any help would be much appreciated
Michael

Answer 1

IMPORTANT
According to the Terms & Conditions listed on BlackRock's website (here):
Use any robot, spider, intelligent agent, other automatic device, or manual process to search, monitor or copy this Website or the reports, data, information, content, software, products services, or other materials on, generated by or obtained from this Website, whether through links or otherwise (collectively, "Materials"), without BlackRock's permission, provided that generally available third-party web browsers may be used without such permission;
I suggest you ensure you are abiding by those terms before using their data in a way that violates those rules. For educational purposes, here is how data would be obtained:
First you need to get to the actual data (not the interactive javascript). How familiar are you with the devloper function on your browser? If you navigate through the webiste and track the traffic, you will notice a large AJAX:
https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239714/ishares-russell-3000-etf/1467271812596.ajax?tab=all&fileType=json
This is the data you need (all). After locating this, it is just cleaning the data. Example:
library(jsonlite)
#Locate the raw data by searching the Network traffic:
url="https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239714/ishares-russell-3000-etf/1467271812596.ajax?tab=all&fileType=json"
#pull the data in via fromJSON
x<-jsonlite::fromJSON(url,flatten=TRUE)
>Large list (10.4 Mb)
#use a comination of `lapply` and `rapply` to unlist, structuring the results as one large list
y<-lapply(rapply(x, enquote, how="unlist"), eval)
>Large list (50677 elements, 6.9Mb)
y1<-y[1:15]
> str(y1)
List of 15
$ aaData1 : chr "MSFT"
$ aaData2 : chr "MICROSOFT CORP"
$ aaData3 : chr "Equity"
$ aaData.display: chr "2.95"
$ aaData.raw : num 2.95
$ aaData.display: chr "109.41"
$ aaData.raw : num 109
$ aaData.display: chr "2,615,449.00"
$ aaData.raw : int 2615449
$ aaData.display: chr "$286,156,275.09"
$ aaData.raw : num 2.86e+08
$ aaData.display: chr "286,156,275.09"
$ aaData.raw : num 2.86e+08
$ aaData14 : chr "Information Technology"
$ aaData15 : chr "2588173"
**Updated: In case you are unable to clean the data, here you are:
testdf<- data.frame(matrix(unlist(y), nrow=50677, byrow=T),stringsAsFactors=FALSE)
#Where we want to break the DF at (every nth row)
breaks <- 17
#number of rows in full DF
nbr.row <- nrow(testdf)
repeats<- rep(1:ceiling(nbr.row/breaks),each=breaks)[1:nbr.row]
#split DF from clean-up
newDF <- split(testdf,repeats)
Result:
> str(head(newDF))
List of 6
$ 1:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "MSFT" "MICROSOFT CORP" "Equity" "2.95" ...
$ 2:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "AAPL" "APPLE INC" "Equity" "2.89" ...
$ 3:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "AMZN" "AMAZON COM INC" "Equity" "2.34" ...
$ 4:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "BRKB" "BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC CLASS B" "Equity" "1.42" ...
$ 5:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "FB" "FACEBOOK CLASS A INC" "Equity" "1.35" ...
$ 6:'data.frame': 17 obs. of 1 variable:
..$ matrix.unlist.y...nrow...50677..byrow...T.: chr [1:17] "JNJ" "JOHNSON & JOHNSON" "Equity" "1.29" ...